Altar Boy

It has been two years since he set foot in a church, not even in weddings; he only attended the receptions. He can’t exactly remember at what point he fell off, he missed the first Sunday and that was it.

He was brought up in a staunch Christian household. He learnt to pray when he was only five and by the time he was a teenager, he could lead prayer anywhere. He attended all catechism classes and had been the pride of his parents every time he would stand as an altar boy.

At home, ‘worldly’ things were either limited or cut off completely. He could only watch T.V at set times when the parents knew there was nothing beyond cartoons. At prime time, say 9 p.m, he would be in his room studying or reading the Bible, his parents weren’t going to risk him seeing a condom or beer commercial.

(Speaking of beer commercials, don’t you just love them? I love how they pour that golden liquid into a pristine glass in slow motion. And you could see how it hits the glass and forms beautiful brown waves in the glass. I immediately feel thirsty after this ads.)

But he got to campus and he started seeing things.

For instance, the sight of girls in short dresses excited him than reading the Holy Book. He always lost himself inside those thighs. The music he listened to changed and it wasn’t his fault. His roommates always played Naija music. He moved from ‘Uninyunyizie Maji, Bwanaaaaaa’ to ‘Pour Me Water, Holy Water.’

And then he was introduced to nightlife and all went downhill from here. All those thighs he’d admired were now gyrated on his loins every weekend. On Sundays, he’d be too hangover to walk to church and he would sleep in until the afternoon.

That’s how he finds himself in a church for the first time in two years. He is embarrassed in the face of God, he can’t even look Jesus in the eye.

When the pastor announces that anyone who isn’t saved can stand and “give his life to Christ”, he is distorted. He never denounced his ‘saviorship’ or loved Jesus any less. He prayed a lot too. And beside the drinking and raving, he was still the good boy his mother raised.

He knew they called it backsliding, but he wasn’t ready to abandon thighs, at least not before he had got into them.

No one stands up to get saved.

The service ends and he walks home but as he’s crossing the road, a lorry charges viciously towards him honking loudly. He’s frozen in his tracks and the metal comes smashing into his body. He lays unconscious, looking into the light.

Soli Deo Gloria

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King is a mad writer on the loose. He is suspected to have lost his mind a few years after he was born. Since then, he has been writing his mind almost everywhere he can put his pen on. Someone – a government, a state, a police force, a parent, a teacher, a rabbi, a president, a sacco, a doctor, a deranged ex, a church, a therapist, or anyone with a bit of power bestowed upon them – should reprimand him and help him.